


Pretty Little Dreams

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-16
Updated: 2011-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> When we have won, Henry told him once, there will be nothing we cannot do. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Little Dreams

Once, when he had known Henry a good four months, he'd rolled over on his stomach, placed his chin upon his folded hands upon Henry's lean hollow of a stomach, always hungry, always in need of feeding, be it on rare, red meat or pain edged screams, and asked, "What are you thinking?"

Henry had stared at him a moment. Raised his hand from where it rested on the sheets, towards Coward's hair. "What do you want," he asked, "when you are old and grey?"

Coward blinked at him, drowsy, amused. "And do you think I'll last to such a sere age?"

The hand in his hair had tightened. "You must," came the reply. "For I have every intention of growing old with you."

*

When we have won, Henry told him once, there will be nothing we cannot do.

What will you do, when nothing is forbidden, he'd asked.

Henry had pushed him up against the wall and kissed, bit at, the corner of his lip. I will set a throne of silver beside mine and adorn it with blue diamonds and the pelts of snow leopards and your naked form, and I shall place my mark upon you for all the world to see, silver on your neck, silver on your finger, silver under your skin, and they bow to you.

He'd laughed.

And I shall touch you when I like, Henry added, softly, breathed into his neck, eyes hidden. And I shall kiss you when I like, where I like, and I shall tell you I love you and never worry who might hear.

*

When this is over, Henry told him once, we shall take a vacation. Visit the sea. The countryside. Ride and hunt and amuse ourselves and think nothing of politics or other people, and I shall fuck you on the grass in the summer.

He'd thought it sounded lovely, but dull.

*

When you are better, Henry told him once, smoothing back the sweat soaked hair from his forehead as he shivered and moaned, half delirious in fever, we will take a train to Dover and I will show you how the sun rises over the ocean and call you great beasts from the deeps and paint your name over the lintel of a cottage door and in the ashes of the hearth and on the underside of every table so when you are old and I am gone you will never have to forget how I wrote your name.

And maybe will we never come back to London, he says, but it is possible Coward just imagined that bit.

*

When they are convinced, Henry had told him once, as he'd meticulously cleaned the blood from under his nails with Henry's handkerchief, we will never have to do this again. There will be no bodies, no blood, no mess. His hand trails over the girl's entrails, spread as though for some augury. No superstition.

Coward wonders if Henry will object to the odd peasant girl opened and bared, to the stink of clotted blood and steaming organs, to the white gleam of bone beneath hair, or if he will find his own appetites awakened again.

*

When we are old, Henry had told him once, the night before he hung, we will live far from the city, far from people, somewhere they have forgotten my name, and we will fall asleep in the sun and I will read to you and you will smile at me and that will be enough.

For a moment, for a second, that blossoms and grows before he can still it, Coward had let himself believe this, let himself believe this is an implacable a fact as the beat of Henry's heart. Will there be a garden, he asks, and Henry laughs.

Yes, he tells him.

With foxgloves, Coward says. That's important.

*

When - when - when -

There was never a when for this.

When I am no longer caged, he tells himself, when I am proved innocent despite it all, when it is spring and the sea sweeps into the cottage, I will hear the beat of your heart again, and mine will match time to it, instead of this stuttering half broken thing. When you come for me, I will remember how to smile again. When - when - when -

*

When I am dead -

Coward hushes him. When you are dead, he says, I shall be as well. Now. No more.

*

In his thoughts, there is a place that Henry described to him, a place like none he had ever known, a place where two graves lie unmarked under a profusion of foxgloves. It is there that he resides; he is not here, staring at the world through a thick loop of rope, he is not tasting bile in his mouth, nor the heavy silence of judgment in his ears. It is the sound of Henry's voice, it is the taste of his skin, it is th -

*

Like all pretty little dreams, it does not last.


End file.
